Questions grow over if Trump, Harris will debate

Questions are growing over if former President Trump and Vice President Harris will debate next month, with a clash about muting microphones fueling speculation about whether such a matchup will happen at all.

The fight over mics started when Harris’s campaign began pushing for live mics throughout the broadcast, switching up gears on the previously agreed upon rules when President Biden was at the top of the ticket. 

Trump on Monday said it didn’t matter to him whether the microphones were muted, even as he further bashed ABC News, the debate’s host, and raised questions about whether he would participate.

Republicans argued that Trump, who has dismissed the idea that Harris is gaining ground in the polls, can ill afford to skip the debate on Sept. 10. Democrats, meanwhile, are eager to label the former president as scared to take on the vice president.

“That debate becomes a decisive moment for the election,”  said one Republican strategist. “Paid media doesn’t move numbers. I don’t know how much swing voters pay attention to daily news cycles. But these debates are just Super Bowl level events in American politics.”

John LaBombard, former communications director to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), argued that Trump has been struggling with campaigning against Harris and the back-and-forth over the debate shows fear over her candidacy.

“Now comes the debate format, on which everyday voters are going to be left wondering why former President Trump—ostensibly an adult wanting to prove his competency to serve again as president—is so nervous about what will be picked up by live microphones,” said LaBombard, a senior vice president at ROKK Solutions. “It may be that he's seen how much more skilled and capable Vice President Harris is on a debate stage than her predecessor, but no matter the reason, it betrays a sense of fear on the part of Trump's campaign.”

Trump himself told reporters Monday he would be fine having microphones on throughout, seemingly resolving the issue. But he still left the door open to backing out, citing his displeasure with ABC.

“We're thinking about it,” Trump said during a campaign stop in Virginia. “They also want to change the rules. You know, the deal was we keep the same rules.”

Harris spokesperson Brian Fallon argued that it was the Trump team, not the vice president, who wanted the mics muted.

“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon said earlier on Monday, adding that Harris can fight back on the former president’s “lies and interruptions” during the debate. 

Mics were muted during Biden’s disastrous performance in the June debate, during which a candidate’s microphone was turned off while the other was speaking. But that was hardly the main takeaway when calls began for the president to drop out of the 2024 race when the president’s stumbling answers and inability to finish some thoughts distracted from any attempts to turn the tables on Trump.

After Biden was replaced atop the Democratic ticket by Harris, Trump initially withdrew from the September ABC debate and cast doubt on whether he would debate Harris at all.

The two sides eventually agreed to hold the debate with ABC News. While Trump had pushed for additional debates on Fox News and NBC News in September, the Harris campaign said it would only agree to the ABC News event before discussing a potential second presidential debate.

“Harris has the advantage no matter what rules are negotiated,” said Michael LaRosa, first lady Jill Biden’s traveling press secretary during the 2020 campaign. “She benefits from open mics because Trump is likely to overreach in his behavior, whether through obnoxious ranting or an aggressiveness perceived as bullying. His style indirectly helps her; all she has to do is show up. She's disciplined regardless of format, and he is itching to go on offense, which is when his tone is most off-putting.”

LaRosa added though that many voters find Trump’s “straight talk and disruptive instincts refreshing and candid,” and said his style “appeals to voters who cringe at robotic or overly scripted politicians.”

Some Republicans have suggested Trump and his team are merely working the referees and looking to lower expectations for him ahead of next month’s debate. Trump and his team have made baseless claims that Harris might be fed questions ahead of time and have insisted ABC is a biased outlet, despite previously agreeing to do a debate with Biden hosted by the network.

But there is also a sense among some Trump allies that Harris’s team is looking to adjust the rules of the debate after the two sides had already come to an agreement.

“The Harris campaign is looking honestly for an off ramp. They want to continue the prevent-defense, hide Kamala Harris strategy until after Election Day,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist.

Senior Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller pointed to an Aug. 15 statement from the Harris campaign that declared the “debate about debates” was over. He suggested the push for format changes is a result of concern over Harris’s debate preparation.

“My guess is that they’re looking for a way to get out of any debate with President Trump. Regardless, there’s no way Harris is ready to be Commander in Chief,” Miller said in a statement.

Trump has in the past made a habit of laying the groundwork to undermine any poor debate performance, such as calling for his opponents to be drug tested.

This time around, allies are framing it as Harris who is actually unwilling to debate.

“I think the debate about the debate is going to continue to go on,” North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) said Monday on Fox News.

Burgum and other Trump allies have suggested the Harris campaign raising issues around the format is a way for the candidate to avoid having to clarify her views on several issues, such as fracking, health care and policing, where she took more liberal stances during her 2019 primary campaign.

“I think they want to continue to stay in the vault inside the basement,” Burgum said. “One way to do that is to avoid a debate.”

The debate, which is set to take place in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center and hosted by ABC News’s David Muir and Linsey Davis, was initially set between Trump and Biden before the president dropped out.

Since then, Harris has a 3.7 percentage point lead in The Hill/Decision Desk HQ polling average and is closing the gap on Trump in several other polls, including in battlegrounds. The Trump campaign in a memo over the weekend predicted Harris may get another bump in the polls off the wave of enthusiasm from the Democratic convention last week.